I am preparing for the inevitable.  That's who I am.  I have ADHD, and I'm scatterbrained, but somehow as I age, I get more organized with certain things, and I have really turned into a bit of a planner.  Since the pandemic started in 2020, I started a stockpile of food with my kids.  I am slowly learning how have enough for an entire year (there's a great book I'm reading, called "A Year Without the Grocery Store").  I have a house organizational notebook (it's bullet journal planner thing, with all the info for our house).  And my Pinterest has a HUGE homesteading/survivalist planning section, which has taught me a lot, too.  I am also meticulous about how I wash the dishes (though I don't impress my "system" onto anyone else--anymore LOL).  I also clean up as I cook, which is something I never used to do.  I also grocery shop with curated lists that make sense and saves me oodles of money.  I have ASD, so I tend to see things in black and white, so change is hard, yet at the same time, easy for me.  So whereas getting to the point I can change can be hard, but once I get it into my head I am ready for change, BAM!  Like a lightbulb, I can just do whatever new thing it is with ease.  So, when it comes to changing things for my mother, is brings me GREAT amounts of anxiety, but once I do it, I am resolved and unlike her wishy-washy style of parenting (all I had to do as a teen was push hard enough and she'd cave and stop caring), I parent her as a stern, yet caring parent would.  And I do not back down.  

My mother has already admitted to going for walks on her own when we're gone, as if it wasn't a big deal (she's a HUGE fall risk and can barely walk at all without almost tipping over).  So, I have a lock for our front door I am prepared to use when I catch her escaping when she shouldn't be.  We aren't quite there yet, but when we are, I am prepared.  I pre-prepared for this by locking up the back gate.  There is one gate in our back and she can't get out to the front if the front door and garage are locked up.  So, while I would never be trapping her in the house (which is dangerous), she would most definitely not be able to leave the back yard on her own (to keep her from wandering).  I am not saying to lock her up when I leave, but at night, if she starts escaping, this will have to happen.  She can escape into the backyard all she wants.  She just won't be able to leave it.

But now she noticed.  It's been locked up for a bit, but she wanted to bring some stuff around front and could not get through.  So she asked everyone, but me, for the combination.  And even though I was right there.  She didn't want to ask me, because she knew.  She knew I did it because of her.  Although, I always wanted that gate locked up ever since we moved in.  It's one less way someone can break into our house, since my mother cannot remember to lock the back door most of the time, even though there's a sign on the door written REALLY big: "KEEP DOOR LOCKED!".  

(Actually, our house has become a sticky-note wonderland, since she doesn't listen if I ask her nicely.  So the sticky note shames her into the fact now everyone knows she's doing something annoying or gross, so she stops without fighting me on it.  Because she ALWAYS fights me on everything.  "Please do not put sides of garbage bag inside of can", "No smoking in the front yard", "Do not hang the scrubbie on the faucet handle" (it's a luffa sponge and have a place for it, but she refuses to use it), "No orange peels in the compost", "No plastic lids in the recycling bag", "Please put the draft snake back in front of the door when it's closed", etc. etc.  She always refuses to do that one, unless I am in the room.  But she leaves the door unlocked (and if you've been here before, you know my mother HATES locked doors (though not in a way that alludes to her being locked in a room as a child, but as a defiance to the world "I don't have to shut or lock my doors!!  The world's rules do not apply to me!!!  I do what I want!!")

So, now there is a lock on the fence, and nobody can get in, or out, without the combination.  Which is one of our birth years, so I made it easy to remember.  But she's angry now.  And she's on my case about getting through it.  But I will not back down.  And I may have to yell at her about it one day, is she gets too combative about it (which is what usually happens when I change something for her). 

Here are the reasons why she'll never get the combination: 

1. So she won't escape, when the time comes she starts escaping, which I am assuming will be soon.  My backyard is huge, so she won't be trapped close to the house if there were a fire or an intruder or something, Though I don't think she'd be home alone for any of that.  
2. To keep my family safe from the riff-raff of the world, because she'll never relock it.  
3. To keep her from leaving the gate open, which happened last summer and my dog escaped.  
4. To keep the landscapers from leaving the gate open, which also happened last year. 
5. To keep her from stealing my stuff and bringing it around the front without me knowing.  She does this.  A LOT.  And if she has to drag it through the house, she won't do it, for fear of getting caught.